Andrew Bynum will return before the end of the regular season next week. That doesn’t mean the Lakers should get their fingers sized for championship rings any time soon.

The Lakers have plenty more to worry about than how Bynum will fit back in the lineup.

Like what in the name of the “Bench Mob” they’re going to do with their maligned reserves and figuring out why squandering leads has become their modus operandi – as was the case Sunday, when the Lakers nearly blew a game against the Clippers.

The Clippers have lost 59 games this season, nearly as many as the Lakers have won (61). But the hapless Clippers made Lakers coach Phil Jackson pull his stars from the bench to clean up that mess.

The Lakers squandered a 19-point lead, and Jackson turned to his starters, who had been kicking back for what was seemingly a lifetime until the bench imploded. The Clippers cut the lead to one point, but Pau Gasol answered by driving to the hoop and scoring with 50 seconds left for a three-point lead.

Lakers fans should have been long gone and battling traffic out of Staples Center parking lots. Instead, they were chanting “Defense! Defense!”

Against the Clippers?

When Baron Davis’ 3-point attempt at the buzzer clanked off the rim, the Lakers escaped with an 88-85 victory.

“We can’t give up leads like that,” Lakers forward Trevor Ariza said. “If we do that in the playoffs, it’s going to come back to bite us.”

At a time when Kobe Bryant should have been cheering from the sideline, he was at the free-throw line with 10 seconds left.

The Lakers missed an important opportunity to rest their starters.

Can you imagine if Gasol was injured in the final minute against the Clippers?

For the first time this year, Jackson dropped precious few words on reporters and left without taking any questions. You can understand why he didn’t want to stick around to dissect that debacle.

“I’m just going to tell you that I was not happy with the ball game,” Jackson said. “We didn’t do the gameplan the right way. We’re mired in this thing at the end, but we were able to prevail.

“- Sometimes, it’s hard for starters to come back in after they’ve sat that long. That’s some of the consequences you take. We’ll have practice (today).”

You can bet that will be fun.

This is not about one practice. This is about the bench. The Lakers need some sort of depth in the playoffs.

Bynum is a wonderful late-season present, but one man alone can’t make up for the disaster that is the bench. Last year’s “Bench Mob” is this year’s “Bench Flops.”

Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic, Josh Powell and Co. have failed to live up to the high standard they set in last year’s march to the NBA Finals.

They still run that ring-around-the-rosey pre-game stuff and have that flair and unity about them, but the results aren’t the same.

Seven reserves Sunday combined for just eight rebounds – and just one on the offensive glass. Farmar was 0 for 3 from 3-point range. They were a combined 1 of 3 from the free-throw line. No one had a steal.

Odom might join the bench unit again, too, and that could pose another problem. Earlier this season, Odom was unhappy with being the team’s first player off the bench, but he grew to accept the role.

Bynum will probably return to the starting lineup when he comes back, even though he won’t be able to play the 29 minutes a game he logged before his knee injury.

“I envision him as going back as a starter again, just because he’s got an injury he’s recovering from that takes some activation still,” Jackson said.

Jackson didn’t even want to discuss the lineup change, which figures to send Odom back to the bench.

Asked if that’s what would happen to Odom, Jackson said: “I’m not going into that now.”